How To Set Goals For 2026 That You’ll Actually Follow Through On

Most people think goal setting is about writing down what you want. It's not. It's about creating gravitational pull so strong that your entire life reorganizes around what you're building. After 15 years of setting and hitting impossible goals — from building multiple businesses to launching a top podcast to selling a million books — I've cracked the code on why most people fail and the few who win do it differently. In this episode, I break down my exact five-step process for setting goals you'll actually follow through on in 2026. You'll learn the regret minimization framework from Jeff Bezos, why Elon Musk uses first principles and backwards timelines, how Warren Buffett's 5/25 rule forces ruthless focus, and why Sam Walton obsessed over daily numeric targets instead of quarterly objectives. I reveal why exploitation keeps you efficient but exploration creates breakthroughs, how to use goal gravity to pull everything towards your target, and why your year needs a name before it can have a plan. But this isn't theory — it's my actual goal journal from the last 15 years. I show you my relationship goals, work targets, travel plans, and even the silly stuff like feeling more feminine and cutting out bread (spoiler: didn't nail that one). You'll see my "more of/less of" list, why I track daily streaks, and how I turned 2024 into my "full send" year and 2025 into my "year of flow." If you're tired of setting the same goals every January and abandoning them by February, or if you want to finally build a life most people only dream about, this episode will change how you think about goal setting forever. It takes 21 days to create a habit, but 90 days to create a totally different lifestyle. Start your timer. This is day one. Protect what you own. Next makes it fast, simple, and painless. Check it out: https://www.nextinsurance.com/codie ___________ 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:12 Goal Gravity: Why Small Goals Kill Your Future 00:02:13 Exploitation vs Exploration: The Fork in the Road 00:03:44 The Regret Minimization Framework from Bezos 00:04:40 Name Your Year: The Power of Framing 00:06:26 First Principles and Backwards Timelines: The Elon Musk Method 00:09:21 The Four Goal Categories: Relationship, Work, Travel, and Fun 00:11:37 The Say No List and Warren Buffett's 5/25 Rule 00:13:17 More Of, Less Of: The Anti-Goal Method 00:14:59 Daily Scoreboard: Sam Walton's Obsessively Measurable Goals 00:16:54 The Five Patterns of World-Class Goal Setters ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Codie Sanchez?

  There's one thing you can do if you don't want next year to repeat what happened to you in 2025, and that is to change the way you plan for goals and execute on them. Today, we're going to break down how to make 2026 your best year yet.

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• 0:58Codie Sanchez?

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• 1:12Codie Sanchez?

  How do you set your goals so you actually achieve them this year? I'm going to give you guys my step-by-step process that I've been doing for 15 years so you can steal my homework. Because like T.S. Eliot said, only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. I always think about this line that Dave Chappelle said, "At any given moment, the one with the bigger dream wins." And then he talked about this story where he always tries to control the dream. And he said, "I am a very powerful dreamer." But I think the trick to that is you actually got to know what you want, otherwise you will be in somebody else's dream. And so this big goal that you have today, if you don't take the right steps to hit it, you will never have the life that you want.

• 1:54Codie Sanchez?

  You will be living in a series of like maybes, potenCIals, couldhaves, shouldhaves, and never actually achieved. But my goal is that you steal my homework today, and you don't live anywhere near that. There's a couple concepts I want you to steal today. One, I call the goal Gravity. So this is the force that pulls everything in your business and life towards whatever your target is because your goal actually means nothing if your habits stay the same. And so you can't have, first of all, small goals. Like T S Eliot said, you need a big goal because that allows your priorities to sharpen. It allows you, even if you miss, and you probably will, you land somewhere you couldn't have reached playing it small. So I want you to think about your goal as this big, huge planet

• 2:36Codie Sanchez?

  that's just pulling all of these things to it because the gravitational pull is so dramatic. If you want to achieve something really tiny, you're never going to have the gravity to do it. So write down a goal, but make it fucking big. That's one. Then a lot of times I realize you have to actually change your mindset to hit that goal. That it's actually scary to write down those big, huge, over the top things that most people will tell you, you will never be able to achieve. And so the fork in the road is that most people never go big and they do what I call exploitation instead of exploration. So exploitation is when you just kind of keep repeating what already works. You iterate a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, until your life kind of looks like everybody else's because you've never done something

• 3:21Codie Sanchez?

  really, really big. You've just exploited the status quo. Exploration is you only obsess on what might work that you've never done before. You explore the unexplored. Both have utility, but the catch is exploitation just gets you efficiency a little bit better. Exploration is where you get breakthroughs. And so right now, almost everything, schools, jobs, nudge us towards being better exploiters, right? Like memorize the right answer, optimize for what's worked before, don't question the playbook, definitely don't risk looking dumb. And so they're trying to get you to refine, but not rethink. And that's okay until you realize your whole business or life is built on habits you stopped questioning years ago. And right now, I think the world is full of exploiters.

• 4:05Codie Sanchez?

  And so we have to get you to actually become one of the few explorers if you want to live a life that most people will only ever dream of. And this is the time to do it right now, towards the end of the year. So I thought I'd tell you how I set my huge goals. And then I'm going to give you tricks from the biggest goal setters in the world that I have learned and implemented in my life. And it kind of starts with this five step process. So I've done this for, God, 15 years now. Step one. I have learned to use the words impossible with the greatest caution. This is actually Von Braun who said that. And I like to steal from my first step, this idea from Jeff Bezos, which is called regret minimization. And how do you do that? So regret minimization means that Bezos didn't set annual goals early on.

• 4:50Codie Sanchez?

  He set irreversible direction goals. So what does that mean? In 1994, he used what became known as this framework, I'm going to tell you. And he said, every time he thinks about a goal, he asks himself, when I am 80, will I regret not trying this? His goal wasn't, I want to make a million dollars. I want to build a company. I want to do a startup. It was, I want to build the world's most customer centric company in the world. I want to be the fittest person ever at 40, something that at 80, you will regret if you do not try. That makes everything else sort of a branch on a tree. Right? So your first question in goal setting is like, what will you regret?

• 5:31Codie Sanchez?

  Not what do you want, but what will your soul scream at you for not having tried? The second thing I do is I say, every year has a name. So if you go back through my, my actual goal journal, every year I name my year first because I think names are really powerful. And if you name it, you can frame it. And if you frame it, then you can actually achieve it. And so for instance, I wrote down some of them for you and I'll actually, I'll show you what it looks like here. 2024, I called my full send year. And after I write a name for my year, I write a sentence on it, which is what I think you should do next. So that year for me, it was the year I fully send it on being myself, taking big swings on periods of sprints and rests,

• 6:14Codie Sanchez?

  and doing it my way with joy and fun and brilliance. So what is your year? In 2025, this year was the year of flow. And that was more of what we want, less of what we don't. So in the past, you know, I had written down, these were my words. It's kind of fun to look at them today. In the past, I had listened to too many others. I'd done all the work myself. I hadn't given the hard feedback in the moment. I'd been the one pushed and shepherding everyone. And this year I said, no more. Now I am the one who gets to receive and have others push for me. I'm no longer in a fight or flight and instead able to conduct the orchestra without playing every instrument. So 2025 was my year of prose and flow. And you saw that probably in my business.

• 6:56Codie Sanchez?

  I hired a bunch of pros to do things that I was doing every single aspect of it before. And it was feeling like a little bit too much. The year before that, I was okay with it. I needed to do it all because I was fully sending it. So this year for you, what is your year? Name it. Tell us in the comments. What is one sentence example of how you want to see that year for you? Then I like to steal this idea from Elon Musk for my third one. He calls it first principles and backwards timelines. So here's how he sets his goals. Musk starts with what physics says is possible, not what society believes. And I love this. I say to my company right now, too, somebody will come to me and they'll say, hey, we can't do X, Y, Z. And I'll say, hold on, I hate that word can't, by the way. Be careful if you ever say can't to yourself. And I'll say, by can't, do you mean?

• 7:41Codie Sanchez?

  Is it physically impossible, AKA against the laws of physics? Is it illegal to do it, AKA you'd go to jail? Or is it contractually obligated? You don't do it? Otherwise, that's just a preference or a resource issue. Can't only means it's illegal, it's physically impossible, or it is against some sort of contractual terms we have written down in ink or blood. And if it is not those three things, then can't's not the right word. Choosing not to could be the right word, but it's not can't. And so Musk starts with physics. That is first principle. Then he sets a target outcome. So he would say that reverse engineers every dependency backward to present.

• 8:23Codie Sanchez?

  Meaning if he says, I want to take a rocket to go to the moon. I want to make life multi-planetary, as he would say. Then he would map, okay, I need rockets. Then I might need reusable ones because it'd be way too expensive if we're not reusing them. I need to land that rocket if I want to reuse it, which means that I need to cut costs, which means I need to manufacture these bad things, which means I need this much capital or money. So he turned the biggest goal, multi-planetary, into the first constraint. Now, how do you do this for you? I would do the same thing. First principles. Let's say it's, I want to make a million dollars this year. I would say, okay, maybe that's big enough, maybe it's not, but first principles, I want to

• 9:08Codie Sanchez?

  free my family financially from ever having to work again. Maybe that's a million, maybe that's 10 million. Okay, now work backwards. Well, how much money do I need? How much money do I spend? What is my skill stack? How long would it take me to get there? Could I do it faster? What mechanisms are real to get there? Instead of just telling me what you want, why don't you tell me what is the path to get the thing that you want? Then I'm going to make you tell me, what are you willing to sacrifice to get it? Here's the truth about owning a business. You work hard to build something real, but without the right insurance, one accident or mistake can cost you weeks of headaches, lost revenue and sleepless nights. Next Insurance gives small business owners instant online coverage so you can protect what you've built. No long forms, no overpriced policies, no waiting around.

• 9:53Codie Sanchez?

  Just fast, simple protection designed for your business. Policies start at 29 bucks a month and you get an instant certificate of insurance so you can win bigger contracts and operate like a true pro. So whether you're a creator, contractor, consultant, or main street operator, Next keeps you covered because risk comes with ownership, but getting protected shouldn't be one of them. Check out nextinsurance.com/Cody and protect what you've built today. And so, let's talk about how I do these goals in my life. I like to categorize them. I'm not so unidirectional as Elon Musk where I'm like multi-planetary or die. I have a couple that are important to me. My first one is always my relationship. So this is literally what some of mine were last year. It was, we're happy and we argue well.

• 10:35Codie Sanchez?

  I think it's ridiculous to think you're not going to argue, just learn to argue fairly. Walk, I want to go on a walk every day together. I think that's like a beautiful moment that we have. I want to have quote unquote, "our" version of work-life balance, which means we live in Austin for most of the year and we have a house by the water and we can go there in aggregate for two to three months a year. Then work, that's the second most important to me after my relationship. That means I want to hit a certain revenue target. It means this podcast, I wanted that to become a top 50 podcast in the world. By the way, ah, yeah, we did it. I wanted to have a bestselling book. I literally wrote down a book that is a New York Times bestseller and I sell a million copies and have a sold out launch date in person with 200K people signed up. And you know what else happened? We fucking did it.

• 11:19Codie Sanchez?

  And so you write them down and it's fun to go look back and see what you did or didn't. Travel, you know, I said, I want to live somewhere with a view of the ocean for one to three months. I did that in aggregate. I wanted to go on a bucket list trip. We did, we went Nicaragua surfing. I wanted to tour around the country, create a movement. We did that with Main Street Millionaire. Then I think you should have some fun in life. So my last category is fun. And so for me, that might be some silly things even. I wanted to feel more sexy and feminine. Look at the shoulder, see, look at that, fucking nail in it. I wanted to play with makeup and hair. I've actually never cared about any of this stuff, but I thought I was like maybe becoming a bit too masculine. So I thought, let's get back into this feminine nature. I wanted to be sleepy and really well and wake up happy and refreshed and not anxious

• 12:02Codie Sanchez?

  and thrilled with my life, which means that I drink less now because red wine makes me crazy. I don't know about you guys, tell me in the comments. I fucking love it, but I don't sleep well. And then, and then I really wanted to focus on my, my enjoying the journey. You know, I don't know if you ever feel like you've achieved some of the things you want in life, but you don't enjoy the journey to achievement. I didn't like that. So I was like, I want to be really happy. I want to feel like I have so much to accomplish, but I'm enjoying it and thankful for it. Okay. So now you've got your buckets. I like having three to five. That's all I allow. The next thing though, you gotta figure out what are the things you want to say no to? Say no to the things that aren't a fuck yes. That was really big for me. And so my say no list included like things I wouldn't do with my mindset and things

• 12:45Codie Sanchez?

  I wouldn't do with my health, which comes back to health being no more alcohol. I didn't nail that one, you guys. I didn't nail it. If you follow me on the internet, you probably know that. I said, I wanted to do hard 75 again. Also did not nail that. And then I wanted no more bread or processed food. And that, my friends, that's the tragedy. That is absolutely not. Accomplished. So, okay, didn't nail all my goals last year, but I nailed more of them than I did before. Then I write a more of, less of list. What does this mean? Well, every year I want to talk about the things that I loved that I did and the things that I wish like, eh, like a little bit of less of that. And so Warren Buffett kind of famously did this another way. He called it the anti-goal method. So how he sets goals is he uses a 525 rule,

• 13:27Codie Sanchez?

  which is he would say to you, write 25 long-term goals, circle the top five of yours, and avoid the other 20 at all costs. And he believes that more goals equal more failure. And I love this story. You know, he was talking about his pilot, and his pilot was saying all these things that he wanted to accomplish this year, and Buffett had him do this. He said, write down these 25, circle the top five. And he was saying, okay, well, how are you going to choose which one of these to do next? And the pilot said, well, I'm gonna do this one, this one, this one. And he just took a big pen and just Xed out all 20 of his goals that weren't in the top five. And said, if you're actually serious about the top five, you have to be completely relentless of cutting in the bottom 20.

• 14:08Codie Sanchez?

  This is called ruthless focus. So every year I write a list of things I want more of in the year, and a list of things that I want less of. Because the truth of the matter is, you can't keep adding always. The world requires subtraction. This last year, some of mine were less respect-seeking. You know, you try to get people to respect you who you honestly don't respect at all. You know, you get upset when somebody belittles your accomplishment. Silly. Partnership deals. I wanted less of those this year. Like last year, I did really, really too bad partnership deals. They cost me seven figures and time. And I was like, I am so tired of being a workhorse for somebody else's reward. So no new friends if they want partnerships. And then chosen struggle. Like, do you ever feel like you get off on hard things, be in the way?

• 14:53Codie Sanchez?

  You know, this year I was like, no, no, I'm gonna see what it's like to paddle with, not against the current. So those are my less of. What are yours? Then my more of. It's like, I want to be more feminine. I want to take big swings. You know, I really focused on the fact that I was going to try a few more big swings and sprints, and then rests. And then fun. I talk a lot about serious things, money, ownership, saving our country. But I want to focus on the fact that we can have fun while we're doing it. And so like some small things here, even at the company this week, we had this big event. We had top tier attendance. And so I was like, how about attendee award? Well, really, Chris came up with the attendee award because we all know my husband's funnier than I am.

• 15:34Codie Sanchez?

  And he's like, let's get 200 chicken tendies for the guy who drove attendance more than anybody else. And we'll give him the annual attendee award. And I was like, that's hysterical. Let's do that. So I want you to think about what is your year going to be? Now, one of the final questions becomes, how do you actually follow through on these? Because your life is going to be your daily actions multiplied and compounded. And so a long time ago, I read a book by Sam Walton, the creator of Walmart. It's an incredible book and he talks about obsessively measurable daily goals. And so how he sets his goals. Well, I think you guys have your big goals already. Now you have your more of less of list. And instead of setting like a bunch of corporate objectives,

• 16:19Codie Sanchez?

  Walton would set daily numeric targets that everybody could see. So for his company, that might've been like sales per square foot, inventory turnover, store growth, shrinkage reduction. He believes everything improves when everyone knows the score. I think that's the same in business and in life. So the question for you is, what are you tracking every day to make sure that you actually know the scoreboard? And one of the ways I do this that I'll show you right now. I use an app called streaks. I'm not affiliated with it, but I should be because I use it all the time. And, um, and basically this app, uh, shows you kind of like each day if you hit your streak or not on the small things you care about.

• 17:01Codie Sanchez?

  And so on here, it's like workout for me, probiotic, sauna sun, focus on something to do with revenue, blah, blah, blah. Um, you can have one just like this. He told this story. That I loved. If you haven't read the book, it's super good. But Walton would basically talk about how he drove 100,000 miles a year with one goal, to visit the stores and ask managers, what is your goal today? Not this quarter, today. And then he would ask them often if they hit it. How do they know if they're going to hit their goals or not? So today, go follow my little chart for you because I know that if you obsess on the thing you want every single day, you're more likely to get it. And so let's talk about some patterns here. What have I seen from the greatest people in the world about setting goals?

• 17:46Codie Sanchez?

  There's really only five patterns, and if you hit them, you will achieve your goals more often. Pattern one, they set far fewer goals than normal people. Two or three directional goals, thousands of executive decisions continuously over time. Pattern two, their goals are binary, not incremental. So make life multi-planetary, dominate microprocessors, become the most customer-obsessed company on earth, become a mom, find a husband, grow your business. Binary goals. They are qualitative in some ways, but they lead to massive quantitative outcomes. They will change the trajectory of your life. Pattern three, they all use time horizons that scare normal people. Bezos famously talked about seven-year flywheels.

• 18:29Codie Sanchez?

  Gates is known as a multi-decade architect. Walton, he did daily execution, but on decades-long wins. And then Musk does 20 to 50-year targets. Pattern four, they don't confuse goals with tasks. So they set direction and then build systems. And five, they document and they track because what gets measured gets managed, just like Peter Drucker says. The great thing for you guys to know this year, it takes 21 days to create a habit. But I think it takes 90 days to create a totally different lifestyle. Start your timer. It is now day one.

• 19:11Speaker 02

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